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However you point out BCM, the big difference there is that they actually make the stuff they add to their rifles. So yes it’s name dropped but the prized accessories of a rail isn’t even made by colt in this scenario.

Which really doesn’t matter.

Colt makes weapons. They only improve them after years of seeing what other people do – which I don’t blame them for but it’s a “who cares” every time they release something because their timetable is 10 to 15 years past the industry.

Crappy pic but looks like a Centurion Arms MLOK CMR rail. It appears Colt is finally catching up to BCM, Daniel Defense, LMT and a bunch of others who have been eating their lunch for years. This is not unlike when Colt “discovered” that 1911 pistols were really popular with the buying public and started re-emphasizing their own…..just when the market peaked.

I’d like to add, to all those geniuses that have been complaining about a lot not building what they want (midlength):

This is purely based on market demand. Colt made midlength guns before most were alive or out of school. They decided it wasn’t needed. Decades and an Internet later, public in all of its engineering and design expertise desired it was. Colt finally caved.

I say this as an early (Clinton AWB era) adopter of the midlength, as in when I was talking about it only two POS companies made them and everyone thought I was making it up.

“Colt made midlength guns before most were alive or out of school. They decided it wasn’t needed. Decades and an Internet later, public in all of its engineering and design expertise desired it was.”

Really? Please provide evidence for Colt’s experience with the mid-length gas system. I’m pushing 60 and I think I know the black rifle’s history pretty well. I have never heard that before.

The mid-length gas system was developed by Mark Westrom of the Eagle Arms/Armalite company (not the original Armalite). If Colt decided it wasn’t needed it was probably because the military specification for the M-4 called for a carbine length gas tube….and they didn’t feel it was worth the effort to offer anything different for the civilian marketplace.

As to the utility of the mid-length, there are plenty of highly experienced and reputable armorers, not garden-variety gunsmiths, who would dispute your assertion that it is just a whim of the buying public. For evidence, take a look at BCM’s offering of 14.5″ and 16″ barrels and you’ll see that they are overwhelmingly in the mid-length configuration. Paul Buffoni, BCM’s owner, is not one known to follow fads.

I checked both Black Rifle books. Colt experimented with a lot of barrel lengths the gas system lengths seemed fixated on the carbine length tube or the rifle length gas tube. Even if they did try mid-length, that’s a far cry from the OP’s statement that “Colt made midlength guns before most of us were alive or out of school” implying that they had produced them in quantity or that they had somehow subjected them to detailed testing. I simply find no evidence of that.
Historical nitpicking aside, the fact remains that today very few companies produce 14.5″ or 16″ barrels with carbine length gas tubes. I happen to believe that the dominance of the mid-length gas system is based on the real benefit of lower pressure at the BCG, less wear and tear on parts and slightly less recoil pulse. 16″ barrels benefit more from mid-length than do 14.5″ which tend to be more finicky.
It’s about time that Colt entered the 21st Century and started offering a 16″ middy.

The depicted weapon is just a other ARmalite all gussied up, primarily with name dropping. Give me a Bravo Company or a Noveske or a Daniel Defense or a Knight’s Armament ARmalite any day over a pieced together, 21st Century Colt pieced ARmalite. BTW….Knight’s Armament employed Eugene Stoner. Stoner working at KAC until his death.

Colt ? If you were just a common citizen you couldn’t buy a Colt as they, for the longest time, put all their eggs in the fedgov basket. Now that the globalist USA government has abandoned American small arms manufacturers for foreign small arms manufacturers (it’s a global economy doncha know ?) Colt is once again selling (pandering) to the citizen, the common slob, market.

Colt ? No thanks. I’ll stick with domestic manufacturers who stepped in to fill the Colt void. Manufacturers who have and continue to provide, arms to the American citizenry to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

“Colt ? If you were just a common citizen you couldn’t buy a Colt as they, for the longest time, put all their eggs in the fedgov basket. Now that the globalist USA government has abandoned American small arms manufacturers for foreign small arms manufacturers (it’s a global economy doncha know ?) Colt is once again selling (pandering) to the citizen, the common slob, market.”

What are you attempting to get at?

Are you bitter 35 years later over the M9 besting the Smith and Wesson 59? Do you pine for the M-60 over the M-240?

Colt made many blunders over the last 50 years with the bankruptcies to prove it, but I suspect your projecting personal malice onto a company that pursued large contracts as opposed to dealing with individual consumers.

Colt totally ignored the citizen consumer. They could have easily provided content to the citizenry. They chose not to.

Beretta bested S&W 30 years ago ? That political gift to NATO, Italy and Beretta gave us cracked slides and frames and crappy ergonomics in the guise of the M92. The M92 political decision was akin to the debacle of the garbage UCP camo pattern besting the superior Multicam pattern 12 years ago. So much for DoD “competition”.

Certainly you can defend Colt as much as you want. That’s your choice. But, my earlier rostered list of small arms manufacturers are my “go-to” providers. Not Colt. And for good reason.

What’s the deal with the lack of a heat shield on the inside of most of these M-Lok or Key-Mod perforated metal tube fore-end thingies? Isn’t it awfully hot on the hands? Or is the metal an adequate thermal sink? Or is everyone wearing Nomex gloves?